1.31.2011

As many of you know Tate is {hopefully} going to graduate school come August. woo woo! {this sound is much like that of Bubb Rubb's whistle tips} You may be wondering, Why is he going back to school? Well, maybe he wants to further his education, or maybe he wants to continue on his never ending quest for knowledge, or maybe, just maybe, he is tired of calling me "Master Barrett" and wants to share the title.

Either way, the GRE has been dominated and the applications have gone out. Now...we...wait...
We wait until March to hear back from following schools in no particular order: TCU, Baylor, Arizona State and Duke. If it were up to Grandma Flo, she would pick them in that exact order to ensure we don't get too far away from her. If it were up to our friend and fellow Houstonian, Meredith, she would pick Rice, which you notice is not on the list. However, she has added a "miraculous scholarship to Rice" to our prayer request list in our small group thrice, so we shall see.

Although we don't know where we will be just yet, this grad school thing is nothing new. Tate has been talking about going back to school since we were engaged. For some reason, it never dawned on me that if he went through with this whole process, I too would go through my own version of it on the job front. When I said "yeah, babe, sounds great, go get em!" It hadn't hit me yet that I too would need a pep talk to fill out applications, update my resume, schedule interviews and pray for direction. Well now that I think about it, it's probably a good thing I didn't think it through.

Tate's application process is complete, and now mine begins. It's such a helpless feeling, waiting to hear back. Knowing that someone is looking at you on paper, reviewing your life's accomplishments and deciding if you are worthy for their cause. Yikes! It's down right scary.

This is somewhat off topic, but hang in there because it will come full circle:
I am reading the Bible through in a year {as I just admitted this to all of you, I am hoping it will hold me accountable to follow through}. Finishing the book of Mark, I am reminded of story after story pertaining to people of bold faith. Real people that believed, without doubt, that Jesus would meet their need and in turn were restored. Currently, God is dealing with my heart in this area--unadulterated faith. Not just asking for something to happen, but confidently knowing that God will see it through. I am leaning on this as we move into this next chapter of our life. With legitimate worries buzzing through my head, I have the confidence that God will provide. Provide direction for school, provide the means to make it happen, provide a job in that area, and provide a beautiful golden retriever puppy :)

I am anxious, yet excited, about the new chapter that is already being written! There are so many new things to come, so many things to do and so many things to look forward to. However, all we need to do now is...wait...

1.17.2011

I was in fifth grade, sitting in the church balcony at FBC McKinney. I covertly plucked a sacred VISITOR card out of the pew in front of me and began filling it out to pass the time. It was probably during another one of those tithing sermons, and I wouldn't be able to use this info for another 50 years anyway...or so I thought. I remember filling out my name as Danielle Whitman, in reference to the boy I had a crush on at the time. We actually "went out" but never said a word to each other. And now that I think of it, we never officially broke up, so I guess we are still technically together. Oopsie. Anyway, I scribbled down my gender, address, phone number and my dream age, 20 years old. After all, this sounded like a prime age and I couldn't wait for the endless possibilities being a "grown up" had offer...

When I grow up, I am going to go to Target every Sunday afternoon instead of taking naps.

When I grow up, I'm going to leave my bed unmade every single day.

When I grow up, I'm going to talk on the phone past 10:30 PM.

When I grow up, I am going to go Fun Time Live twice a month to slow dance with my boyfriend instead of just once.

Tate tells me his list was quite different:

When I grow up I'm going to live alone.

When I grow up I'm going to be a real cowboy.

When I grow up I'm going to have kids but not a wife.

You'll be relieved to know only one of the things on that list has been fulfilled, and although Tate thinks he is a real cowboy, I was referring to our bed being unmade. I was reminded of this little list few months ago when we went out to eat with family friends. As the cutest little flower girl in the world was finishing her lunch, she looked at her mom and said, "How much more do I have to eat?" I thought, wow I'm a grown-up and can eat however much or little I want. Although picking at my food while not having to answer to anyone is rather freeing, being grown-up isn't all it's cracked up to be. Frankly, it's just overrated.

Tate and I have passed a lot of milestones in the past year, crossing over into adulthood. We had to take money out of our savings to buy boring stuff like tires, call and make our own doctors appointments, negotiate rent, price car insurance, pay taxes, and lots of other boring, grown-up stuff.

Tonight was another milestone. We went to one of our favorite restaurants and had to....ask.for.the.manager. Dun, dun dunnnn. This is such a mom/dad gesture, but hey when you are using good entertainment money out of your own Dave Ramsey budget, things get real. We won't name this restaurant to avoid compromising the sterling reputation of their famous cheesecake made in their factory, but let's just say service was fairsub-parcrappy non-existant. I will spare you the details, but long story short we were unsatisfied and my heart was racing as we asked to speak with the manager for the first time in our adult lives. After speaking my mind and consuming a free slice of cheesecake, I felt satisfied. Instead of the usual compromise, we had stood up for ourselves in a public setting to people we didn't even know. It was one small step for the Barretts, one giant leap for the transitioning grown-ups of the world.